


as per the contract

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Bargaining, Historium Bingo, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Season/Series 02, Stripping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19841728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: “What I’m saying, Mr. Shelby, is that you and the Peaky Blinders think with your cocks,” Alfie says. “You don’t kill where you fuck. Solid course of action, really, I’m all for it. So. If you want me and you to be pals again, how about you let me fuck you? You know. Just as insurance.”





	as per the contract

Tom Shelby’s smile is just barely there, on and off, as he tells Alfie about the alleged grenade he’s left in a corner of the store-room floor. Adding details artfully. His family tavern, supposedly blown up for the insurance. His experiences in the war. The pin. Detail after detail, slowly talking down Alfie’s price.

Alfie has to admit that Tommy’s a master. He walked into this situation completely at Alfie’s mercy, and now he’s slowly taking back control. And he’s clearly cocky about it too, which pisses Alfie off more than a little… and sort of turns him on at the same time.

He likes cocky guys. He likes teaching them not to be so cocky anymore. Yeah, he thought he’d already taught Tommy that lesson—and it gave him great satisfaction—but he’ll take a repeat, why not.

“Oh, Tommy,” he says. “All right, why barter over something as boring as money? I’ll take the twenty percent you offered, and you won’t kill us all off with your fucking hand grenade. Seems fair enough.”

Tommy’s eyebrows raise slightly. He knows better than to think the bargaining’s over—Alfie wouldn’t jump down from fifty to twenty that easily, not without more proof that Tommy isn’t bluffing.

“But,” Alfie says, “there’s no point in any of this if I don’t know you’ll be loyal, man. Loyal, and a little less… how do I put this… goddamn fucking dumb. That you’ll let me know before starting any more fights, and keep to our agreed terms.”

“You’re the one who broke our truce,” Tommy points out. “I have been perfectly honest with you, Mr. Solomons.”

He offers Alfie respect in these things, manner of speech and the like. That’s good but it’s not enough when it’s a shallow front for despising. Tommy and the Peaky Blinders love to bare their necks to the wolf, and then shoot the wolf in the back, several times, the moment they have the opportunity. They’re dirty stinking bastards, and even this contract probably won’t hold them, but Alfie will at least have his fun in the meantime, that he will. And maybe he’ll get lucky.

“So you have. I didn’t give you a chance to betray me. I acted first.” Alfie grinned. “But let’s be civilized now, shall we? We shouldn’t be at each others’ throats like this. I was pondering just now how we could have a treaty that we would both honor. And I was thinking—you don’t betray the Lees, do you? You’ve been allied to them for two years and you’ve never betrayed them. Pretty good for you, Mr. Shelby.”

“The Lees are our allies by marriage,” Tommy says. “Esme and John sealed our alliance. We are family.”

“Yes, exactly! That’s exactly it. I was thinking, even you Peaky Blinders don’t betray your family, do you? You have some fucking decency in you. And I heard you didn’t kill a certain spy also—blonde barmaid, working for the feds as far as I heard—this pretty barmaid you were in love with and she broke your heart, you didn’t kill her. Do you see what I’m driving at?”

Tommy bluntly says, “No.”

He doesn’t seem amused by Alfie’s ramblings. No one ever is. Oh well.

“What I’m saying, Mr. Shelby, is that you and the Peaky Blinders think with your cocks,” he says. “You don’t kill where you fuck. Solid course of action, really, I’m all for it. So. If you want me and you to be pals again, how about you let me fuck you? You know. Just as insurance.”

* * *

They put it in the contract, in the end. Tom Shelby will let Alfie Solomons fuck him—once within the next week to seal the agreement, and after that on Alfie’s demand but not more than once every month and scheduled at least three days in advance. Alfie is surprised at how easily Tommy agrees, barely bartering at all. Of course he’d known he could talk the bastard into it eventually, but he thought he’d have to be more persuasive, thought at the very least Tommy would bring the grenade up a few more times. No, Tommy just wants reasonable terms of prostitution—and, he says, he doesn’t want Alfie to let knowledge of the arrangement spread beyond the current inhabitants of the room. That’s fair, too. Alfie appreciates some privacy in all his affairs. Of course, he tells Tommy, since it’s all written up in the contract, if Tommy were to break the contract then Alfie might have to make the knowledge public in suit for justice. He smiles charmingly, and Tommy nods without a smile, and says that if that’s it, he and the Peaky Blinders are off to the races.

That is indeed it.

Alfie wonders what makes Tommy agree so easily. Is it because the grenade really is a bluff and he knows he’s lucky to get out alive? Is it because he wants to limit Alfie’s percentage of his business that badly? Is it because he’s really been wanting Alfie to fuck him all along but has just been somewhat shy about it because of obvious reasons? Not that Alfie really gives a shit as long as he goes along with the agreement but damn, he accepts the offer as if he has nothing to lose—with the provision that if/when he dies, Alfie will not receive any monetary increase in his share of the business to make up for it. That agreed, he signs the paper with no hesitation and leaves with barely a backward glance.

When they check the store room, they do, in fact, find a grenade, and Alfie has to call in a specialist to get it defused. So it’s not that.

(It’s somewhat surprising to Alfie, really, and he’s not sure whether he would respect Tommy’s nerve more or less if he was only bluffing, as was his initial assumption.)

At any rate, he half expects Tommy to try to weasel out of it but he’s contacted only two days later, the dust barely settled from the affair at the races, with the message that he is to come to a house Tommy has bought only recently—Tommy’s own house, a little ways out of the city—in order to “discuss business.”

Alfie brings three men with him as backup, and carries a knife and a gun himself, concealed. He doesn’t trust Tommy at all, though he wonders whether he’ll be right, whether Tommy will see their business relationship differently once they’ve fucked. Out of deference to the agreement for secrecy, he leaves his men outside the house, only telling them to guard the entrances. “If Shelby tries to leave before me,” he says, “stop him. You know the kind of man he is. He might try to murder me, or run out on our… business.” They don’t know what exactly the business is, but they know it’s something Alfie is excited about, and they probably have some conjectures. “Don’t kill him, but you don’t need to be afraid to be rough. Tommy’s a big boy, he can take it.”

He rings the doorbell, and Tommy answers promptly. He’s been waiting.

He has the same cool poker face on as always, and he gestures for Alfie to come in. He does eye the man watching the front door, but only briefly. He understands; business is business.

They sit down in the living room. Tommy pours them both some alcohol. It’s not Alfie’s. “Recent import,” Tommy tells him. “Don’t worry, you’ll be getting your cut.”

“I would hope so,” Alfie says. “Remember, we’re going to be as close as family.”

“Indeed.” Tommy raises his glass. “Let’s drink to business, Mr. Solomons. And to friendship, I hope.”

Fat chance. But Alfie laughs and they both drink. It’s good stuff—maybe not as good as Alfie’s white, but loads better than his brown.

“You’ve no doubt heard about our successful coup on the tracks,” Tommy says. “Sabini is in remission. Our men have applied for gambling licenses to replace his men, which will be a huge loss of revenue for him. Do you feel avenged?”

Alfie had gotten pissed at Sabini for kicking out his bookies, yeah. But he hates Sabini more for other things: his Jew-hating tendencies for one, his backstabbing tendencies for another. And he has to admit, even though the Peaky Blinders are a pain in his ass, it’s rather fun to see them plague Sabini. So he says, “Yeah, blighter got what was coming to him. Here’s to that.” He drinks again. “But I didn’t come here to hear all about your splendid victory, I’ve heard about that from my own sources. Believe it or not, not everyone enjoys watching you gloat.”

“Your victory, too,” Tommy says. Very courteous. Of course he doesn’t mean it.

“Let’s not waste time, yeah? You’ve just moved into this house—upstairs have a bed?”

Tommy nods. “Yes, Mr. Solomons. It has a bed.”

“Well then.”

They go upstairs.

The room, like the rest of the house, is furnished in the way of a man who has no time to think of furnishings. It is not nice. There is a mirror, an armoir, a cabinet, a bedside table, a wooden chair, and, yes, a bed. They are all very simple. There are only two fancy things about the room: One, the wallpaper has some nice geometric patterns, and doubtless was there before Tommy moved in. Two, there is an elegant stone bowl, the type used for smoking tobacco, or other substances.

The room smells of tobacco, but also of opium, so that answers that question. Alfie doesn’t indulge in opium himself, but he knows plenty of gangsters do, and plenty of war veterans. They want to escape their minds, or sleep without dreams. He looks at Tommy and wonders what exactly haunts him. He’s sure there are plenty of options.

Men like Tommy Shelby don’t spring out of the womb fully formed. No, they are shaped by experiences… and it intrigues Alfie that there are experiences that stick to Tommy to such a degree, haunt him to such a degree. Though it doesn’t surprise him. No, it doesn’t surprise him.

He sits down on the bed. “All right, Tommy. Strip.”

He says it mostly to see Tommy squirm. But Tommy doesn’t squirm. He merely unbuttons his collar. It’s a detachable collar, a neat beaufort under the real collar of his shirt. He detaches it and places it on the wooden chair. Then he fucking fixes the collar left behind, making Alfie exclaim in exaggeration, “Come on, Shelby, you’re not going to be keeping the damn thing on, are you?” He better not.

Tommy says, “A thing worth doing should not be rushed, Mr. Solomons.” Which is something one would not expect out of a Peaky Blinder’s mouth, especially not this one.

He takes off his coat next, and hangs it up in the cabinet. Next his vest, each button deliberate. He places it on the chair with the collar, watch still in the pocket, carefully folded. This is as little clothing as Alfie has seen Tommy wear before, and he watches with growing hunger as Tommy unbuttons his shirt.

The first button reveals his collarbone.

The second, the center of his ribcage.

The third shows the ribcage’s end, the beginning of his stomach.

Now he pulls the shirttails and the front of the shirt out of his trousers to undo the rest, though still slow and deliberate. Alfie thinks he must be going this slowly just to make Alfie mad, test his patience, show him that if they’re going to fuck it will be on Shelby terms—but then he sees the way Tommy slides his arms out of the shirt, shrugging out of it in a move generated from the shoulders, how slowly he reveals each inch of his chest, and he realizes. This isn’t a stalling tactic.

It’s a goddamn striptease—especially since, despite all those layers, Tommy apparently isn’t wearing an undershirt. Which is an easy way to ruin good linen.

Stunned by the realization, Alfie blurts out, “Thought your business was planning and fighting, Shelby, not looking pretty. You seem unexpectedly experienced.”

Tommy tilts his head and doesn’t answer. He stretches, letting Alfie take in all the details of his upper body, lean muscle and pale skin. Then he bends over and unties his shoes, meticulous about the lacing. He takes them off and kneels right in front of Alfie to tuck them under the bed.

His bare chest brushes against the legs of Alfie’s trousers. He puts his hands on Alfie’s knees. “Do you plan on doing this fully dressed, Mr. Solomons?” His gaze travels the length of Alfie’s body in a way that sends blood straight down to his cock.

“No, no,” Alfie says. His voice comes out hoarse; he clears his throat. “I’ll get around to it. Thought I’d let you finish your show first.”

“Well then.” Tommy gets to his feet again. “I suppose I’d better finish.”

He’s careless with his belt now, throwing it to a corner of the floor. His trousers are off in seconds and thrown away too, his underwear as well. He is almost completely naked when he bends down again and carefully, ever so carefully, peels off his socks.

When he stands up, Alfie can tell his dick is hard and ready. What a coincidence—so is Alfie’s.

Though Alfie may have to draw this out a little to get back at him.

He pats the bed, and Tommy sits down. Alfie says, “Well, after that show, I feel fucking self conscious. I don’t quite have your technique. Maybe you should take off my clothes for me.”

Tommy says, “If you want me to.”

The coat goes easily, and is tossed to the side. But Tommy leans in close to undo the buttons of the vest and slides it off slowly, fingers skimming Alfie’s shoulders and back. When he begins to unbutton Alfie’s shirt, he doesn’t look at the buttons, but looks Alfie in the eyes. Their heads are barely an inch apart.

Alfie gives up. He grabs Tommy by the shoulders and drags him in for a kiss. Probably mauls the man’s fucking mouth—no, he shouldn’t joke about that, not when Tommy’s brother is that mad dog Arthur—but he’s past the point of subtlety. He kisses Tommy until he’s out of breath, tears himself out of his own shirt and trousers (the shoes are kicked off untied, the socks given up on) and shoves Tommy down on the bed, face first. He can hear Tommy gasping when he shoves in—pain, pleasure, exhilaration, what have you—but he doesn’t try to make the man moan or beg like he wanted to, he just pounds his own way to orgasm because damn it, he needs this. He fucking needs this. The fucking tease.

When he’s done, he pulls out with a sigh. Tommy is still hard, but he doesn’t whine about it. He stands and coolly excuses himself to visit the bathroom.

Fucker.

Alfie’s pretty sure he’s utterly failed at teaching Tommy a lesson in humility or subservience. The man seems to believe he can control any situation, even when someone else’s cock is in his ass, and Alfie has unfortunately let him control this one. But oh well. It’s been a good afternoon, anyway, and as per the contract Alfie can have another go at it in a month.

**Author's Note:**

> Just finished watching Peaky Blinders season two, and I also just got a Historium Bingo card. So this is for the Historium Bingo square of "strip-tease."


End file.
